How is your Happily-Ever-After?

In life, you will try lots of things.  Some of them, you will be successful at because you enjoy them. In others things you will find success because of your talents. Unfortunately, there will be things that–no matter how much you want them—you will find that they are not your cup of tea.

Have you ever thought a relationship could be one of them?

Have you watched a baby when he gets ready to walk?  There is a lot of trial and error associated with his new adventure.

Relationships are similar to this trial-and-error process that we watch babies go through.  You have to fall a few times before you learn to stand.  You have to fall a few more times before you take that first confident step. Eventually, if you are lucky, you will get it right and marry the right person. This is equivalent to when that baby takes off walking to explore the world.

Marrying the right person does not always ensure a happy ending.  The right person in the wrong circumstances could leave you feeling like you are navigating those baby steps again.

As children, we all get different impressions of relationships.  Some of the influences will come from our parents while others will come from watching people outside of our close-knit community. Other influences will come from our interaction with the opposite sex.  By the time, a person is ready to think about marriage, normally, she has a pretty good sense of the type of person that she wants to marry.

As children, we read about the happily-ever-after lives of princes and princesses who find true love in a magical kiss.  The truth is: In the real world, it does not normally work that way.  Chances are, you are not going to meet a boy in forest. He won’t sing you a romantic song which you will instantly recognize. The handsome prince won’t hoist you up on a horse and into his muscular arms. You won’t ride off to the palace to get married.

Well, that was not my experience anyway! But I will not tell you that it absolutely couldn’t happen. America is the Land of Opportunity after all!

We all get married for different reasons.  Some people marry for security.  Others marry for love. And there are those who marry out of insecurity.   I am sure that if we surveyed a hundred people each would have a different answer. However, more than 25% of them will not say they married for love!

Why you get married is personal reason and not for anyone to judge or to say that it is wrong. It was a personal choice.  You needed to make the right choice for yourself at the time.   The key words are AT THE TIME.

So let’s fast forward your life one month, two years, and a decade later.  Do the choices that you made to marry still hold true?

• If you married for love, are you still in love?
• If you married for security, is the situation still secure?
• If you married so you did not have to be alone, have you not felt loneliness since?

Or…

If you married for love, have you stayed married for security?

Did you marry for security and now realize that it has turned to love?

Sadly, did you marry so you did not have to be alone and now find you are the loneliest you have ever been?

Marriage is a bizarre event.   It is the merging of two people who promise to be happy for the rest of their lives—with a few hiccups.   How has your happily-ever-after turned out for you?

Food for thought Wednesday!